Why Does Weather Data Suck for Businesses?

There’s no shortage of business-facing weather data products that look like the real deal. But you can’t judge a book by its cover. With colorful maps and intricate charts, these products seem to have a lot to offer, but often fail to deliver impactful results. 

Why is this?

Well, have you ever spoken with someone you could tell was just waiting for their turn to speak? Not really listening to you at all, just thinking about what they are going to say next? That’s how most weather data companies build and market their products. Instead of starting with a problem and building a solution, they start with the solution and look for a problem. This means the solution is usually tailored to solve someone else’s problem, not yours. 

How does this happen and what does it mean?

This happens because the National Weather Service (NWS) is mandated by the federal government to produce products focused exclusively on improving public safety. (As the government is not a private business, Congress does not allow the NWS to create products competitive for any other purpose.) Since NWS products are freely available to anyone with internet service, it’s easy for an enterprising coder or Legacy Weather Companies (LWCs) to take these products, repackage and sell them to other companies looking to improve their business through the intelligent use of weather information. 

So, what’s the problem?

Well, if your business objective is improving public safety, there is no problem. The NWS has many talented meteorologists and programmers working day and night to protect the public and warn us of potential threats. They create world-class technologies and algorithms to fill that need.

The problem is, almost every weather product available on the market today is based on NWS products designed for public safety. That’s because building application-specific products from scratch using raw data takes a lot of time, talent, and resources. So there’s a strong incentive to simply repurpose existing products built for a different problem, even when they can’t really generate the insights customers actually need.

But... Is YOUR goal next quarter to improve public safety? Probably not. Why, then, should you employ products designed for a completely different application? 

When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. 

This is why most LWCs aren’t really listening to you. Whether or not they understand your situation, their approach will be the same. They have a hammer, they know they have a hammer, and by God they’re going to help you figure out how to hammer away at your problem. But the fact is, you don’t always need a hammer. Sometimes you need a screwdriver, or a wrench, or something else entirely. But how many businesses selling hammers are going to tell you that?

We take a very different approach.

To get a clear answer to a specific question, the first thing we have to do is listen to customers like you describe their problems. We identify a problem, and then determine whether or not we can help. If we can, we start from scratch to build a solution for that specific problem, not for public safety. Combing through layers of existing products designed to answer someone else’s question in the hopes of building a Frankenstein solution is eventually doomed to fail. We reject that approach, and instead build our own data sets from scratch with one goal in mind from the onset -- solving your problem. 

So, if the primary goal of your business is to increase public safety, there are a lot of great products out there that will work very well for you, and many savvy meteorologists (including ours) can help you separate the signal from the noise. But if you have concerns other than public safety, you need our help. And if we can’t help you, we will tell you so, instead of selling you a hammer when you really need a wrench.